But its more than one million members might be surprised to learn that Miranda Krestovnikoff, the BBC broadcaster, is championing the eating of some of Britain’s wildlife — more precisely, roadkill.

The presenter has told how she wants more people to source their meat not from a local supermarket or specialist butchers, but rather, from the roadside.

She spoke after hosting a dinner party for friends featuring rat — fried and served with a garlic and soy sauce dip — from the B3347 near Sopley in the New Forest; fox, sautéd in garlic, from the Ferndown bypass, near Wimborne, Dorset; and badger chasseur, served with tomato sauce and croutons, picked up from the A354 near Salisbury.

“It would be good to encourage it more widely,” she said. “I don’t see why not. People have a problem with it because the meat has not come from a cellophane wrapper. But if the meat is fresh, there’s no risk of catching anything. It’s lean, healthy, organic, free, guilt-free and as fresh as fresh can be. We need to know what we’re eating and where it is coming from and this allows you to do that.

“It is a chance to get connected to what you eat. We’re obsessed by sell-by dates and things like that. But roadkill can be eaten very hygienically. People are too squeamish.”

Krestovnikoff, who was yesterday named as the new president of the bird conservation charity, began eating roadkill after spotting a dead pheasant on the roadside near the home on the outskirts of Bristol where she lives with her husband, Nicholas, who runs a publishing company. The pair butcher the meat themselves. Offcuts are made into sausages and remains are left outside, to be scavenged by wild animals and birds.

They now keep a tarpaulin sheet in their car, to allow them to pick up any suitable carcasses that they see. One of the first deer Krestovnikoff recovered was one she spotted while heading home from school with her children.

“Other parents saw and thought it was odd,” she said. “I don’t go looking for roadkill. But if I see it I will take it home. I know it is bizarre, but if you think back a few hundred years, I’m sure people did stuff like this.”

Krestovnikoff, who has appeared on Coast, The One Show and Britain’s Big Wildlife Revival, is happy to feed the meat to her children, aged five and seven, and they are aware of its origins.

Miranda Krestovnikoff(REX FEATURES)

“They know about life and death,” she added. “They know where meat comes from. I’ve never hidden anything like that from them.”

There are some requirements for the preparation of roadkill which may not be available to all — including space. Large animals like deer should be hung for up to five days in a cool area, such as a garage. The butchering process is also messy, though Krestovnikoff says people can take their roadkill along to a butcher to do this part.

She said she would not eat an animal which had been completely run over or been left at the roadside too long. She added she would also avoid rabbit carcasses with any signs of myxomatosis, but that any diseases carried by the animals should be rendered harmless to humans by the cooking process.

The Food Standards Agency does not seem so sure. It advises against eating roadkill, saying the animals may not have been healthy when killed and may have been suffering from disease or environmental contamination. It also warns that, if left on the roadside for too long, harmful levels of bacteria, such as salmonella, E. coli and Clostridium botulinum, could grow.

Yet despite this, the eating of roadkill is understood to have increased in recent years. Although it remains something of a taboo, other advocates have included Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, the celebrity chef, Janet StreetPorter, the broadcaster, and Jimmy Doherty, the television presenter and farmer.

It is legal to eat roadkill, provided the animals have been run over accidentally and the meat is not sold.

However, in some areas there have even been reports of people luring deer on to roads by leaving food like jam sandwiches on the carriageway. When the animal is killed by a vehicle, its carcass is swiftly retrieved.

Krestovnikoff’s latest dinner party was filmed for BBC One’s Inside Out programme, to be screened tomorrow at 7.30pm in the West. It will also be available on iPlayer.

For the show, Jonathan McGowan, a taxidermist from Bournemouth, helped to source the food. He has lived on a diet of roadkill for 30 years, and has eaten mice, moles, hedgehogs, squirrels, rats, foxes, badgers, hares, weasels, polecats, otters, wildcats, finches, thrushes, pigeons, owls, crows, gulls, blackbirds and cormorants.

At the party, the fox loin, served as “fox trots”, seemed to go down well. Ben Brown, a teacher and one of Krestovnikoff’s guests, described it as “a cross between steak and Billtong”. Reaction to the rat was less positive.

Stan Cullimore, a children’s author and former member of The Housemartins, said: “It smells of pork scratchings. It smells of the farmyard but the dungheap side of the farmyard.”

Martin Poyntz-Roberts, a BBC producer and friend of Krestovnikoff’s, said: “It’s absolutely revolting and it’s still in my mouth and it’s bony.” The badger was more of a success. Mark Sharman, a cameraman and guest, compared it to venison and Mr Poyntz-Roberts, having recovered from the rat, was also a fan. “I didn’t think that was bad. I quite enjoyed that.”

But Mr Cullimore said: “I’m not a fan. The fox I liked, the rat was interesting but this is like undercooked liver.”